ABOUT US

Archana likes to think she inherited the travel bug from her parents, who grew up in India, and lived in Singapore and Malaysia before settling in the States. (It was with them that she saw Paris, Rome, Bermuda, Hawaii and Egypt.) In 2003, she moved from her New Jersey hometown to Chicago to: 1.) study journalism at Northwestern University, 2.) see what life was like outside the Tri-State area, 3.) spend an incredible six months studying abroad in Melbourne, Australia, and 4.) eventually meet Eaman. (Together, they’ve gone to Aruba, Turks and Caicos, Montreal, San Diego, Austin and France.)

In 2007, Archana moved to New York, where she worked as a writer at People StyleWatch magazine and Entertainment Weekly. Although EW was her dream gig and New York was a fun, valuable experience, after the charm of shoebox apartments wore off and the smell of garbage in the humid summer lost its je ne sais quoi, she decided it was now or never to travel the world. Archana dreams of the day when she can put up a giant map in her home, marking all the incredible places she and Eaman have visited on this adventure.

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Eaman is Iranian and grew up in Oklahoma, but he’d like to clear up two common misconceptions: No, he isn’t a BMW-driving, Gucci-wearing Persian and no, he didn’t live on a farm. A diehard OU Sooners fan (Boomer Sooner, baby!), he spent his formidable years in Norman, Oklahoma, watching football, playing soccer and enjoying the world’s finest Persian cuisine (thanks, Mom).

Ready to experience big-city life, he moved to Chicago in 2002 to attend Northwestern University, where he studied biomedical engineering (thank goodness his friends let him copy their work). He lived in the Windy City for two years post-college, where he worked as an analyst a cube monkey at Lehman Brothers—and left right before it crumbled. New York was in the cards next, and he moved to the even bigger city in 2008 to work in private equity. For someone who never thought he’d move to the Big Apple, living in NYC was a pleasant surprise. But with a hunger to travel and set his own professional path, he knew a RTW trip was a perfect way to shake things up and see the world — one hostel at a time.